Tag Archives: Leroy Nyalugwe

Malawi, Technology

MUST host ACIST; Malawi tipped to embrace digital learning system

Maravi Post Reporter 1 Comment
Leroy Nyalugwe: The man behind Mathematics e-modules

BLANTYRE–(MaraviPost)—The Ministry of Education in Malawi has been tipped to embrace digital learning system in order to make teaching and  learning of science subjects successful and interesting for students and teachers.

In Malawi, many students shun Mathematics saying it is mind-boggling subject.

But Leroy Nyalugwe, Bachelor of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) student at Mzuzu University, is optimistic that use of ICT is the way to go if Malawi is to register success in implementing the revised secondary school curriculum which has put much emphasis on science subjects.  

Presenting at the African Conference on Information Systems and Technology (ACIST), under the title “Demystifying Teaching of STEM Subjects in Malawi Secondary Schools,” Nyalugwe emphasized on the need to embrace an electronic based approach to teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in secondary schools in Malawi, with community day secondary schools as principal targets.

“Use of electronic modules will help Malawi, as a nation, to continue with undisrupted provisions towards the right to education for the secondary school students, even in the presence of pandemics like COVID 19. In addition,  STEM subjects and topics, which are often regarded as being difficult, and hence not well taught in a number of secondary schools in Malawi even though the curricula rate them as compulsory, needed a demystifying,  leaner-friendly, repeatable approach to their teaching,” he expounded.

Nyalugwe has Mathematics electronic module for the Malawi Secondary School revised curriculum to his credit. The modules are made in MP4 format which are more compatible with portable electronic gadgets like tablets, phablets, laptops etc.

African Conference on Information Systems and Technology (ACIST) is an annual event that brings together researchers, academicians, industry experts and technologists producing knowledge on the relationship between digitization and the key issues in Africa trade and development.

Malawi University of Science and Technology was the host of this year’s event under the ttheme “Digital Innovation for Africa Free Trade & Development“.

The 2021 (7th) edition of ACIST focuses on digital innovation challenges and opportunities for Africa free trade and development.

It is hoped that researchers in Africa and elsewhere will think creatively, broadly, and provocatively about the theme of Digital Innovation for Africa Free Trade & Development from many different theoretical, philosophical, policy and practical perspectives. 

According to ACIST, digital innovation is shaping, to various degrees, all human activities around the world. For some activities which include significant volumes of information exchange, the degrees of digital innovation are very high. This is because digital innovation enables better, faster and cheaper transactions, operations, and decisions.

In Africa, it is positively influencing new ways of trade and development across the continent. With the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) leading to the beginning of trading in January 2021, we envision digital innovation to have a greater positive influence on Africa.

“However, this influence cannot be taken for granted because driving digital innovation is hard work. Positively influencing trade and development requires significant research to produce knowledge on the relationship between digitization and the key issues in Africa trade and development,” statement by the organizers reads in part.

Efforts to know how these researchers will be assisted to have their solutions implemented proved futile as one of the organizers of the 7th ACIST, Dr. Bennett Kankuzi, did not respond to a questionnaire.

Malawi has recently registered a significant progress in the field of technology and there has been a boom of innovations during the Covid-19 epidemic period.

Efforts to know how these researchers will be assisted to have their solutions implemented proved futile as one of the organizers of the 7th ACIST, Dr. Bennett Kankuzi, did not respond to a questionnaire.

 The Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) through its Institute of Industrial Research and Innovation (MIIRI) on April 16, 2021, has also taken a step further by introducing Community Innovation Programme where local innovators who have no access to institutions of higher learning are being are mentored by experts.

 

Education, Malawi

Mzuzu University ICT students steering Malawi to digital learning system

Maneno Chimulala 1 Comment

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)–John F. Kennedy once observed that the word “crisis” in Chinese is composed of two characters—one representing danger, the other opportunity. He may not have been entirely correct on the linguistics, but the sentiment is true enough: a crisis presents a choice.

With the foregoing, Mzuzu University student Leroy Nyalugwe saw the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended nearly every aspect of life, from the personal to the professional, as an opportunity for innovation to address challenges facing the education sector.

Nyalugwe, a Bachelor of Science (ICT) student at Mzuni, an institution that is known for producing ICT wizards in Malawi and beyond the borders, has come to the rescue of Malawian secondary students by escalating access to education with his first of its kind innovation—Mathematics electronic modules—which has attracted interests of educators and education ministry authorities.

The innovation, that initially appeared to counteract the Covid-19 situation that has challenged the education system across the world and forced educators to shift to digital learning from traditional pedagogical approach, has proved to be a permanent solution to help in enhancing quality and continuous teaching and learning in Malawi.

Appreciating the efforts, Mzuzu University recently sent Nyalugwe along with fellow ICT student Vision Thondoya and Head of ICT Department, Reuben Moyo, to represent the institution at the digital learning system exposition held at Malawi Institute of Education (MIE) in Zomba on 25th February 2021, where organizations and companies showcased their digital solutions to teaching and learning in the education sector.

Nyalugwe presented a demo of one of his e-modules and the representatives from the ministry of education evaluated it as the best solution to help in enhancing quality and continuous teaching and learning in Malawi.

They also suggested that the e-modules should be presented through Television Learning Programs, and also to identify the best teachers to be involved in developing electronic modules of the same quality in all other different subjects.

“The modules are potable and compatible to play in portable devices like smart phones, laptops and the audience suggested to have the modules run through Television Stations. The modules provide a step by step learning platform. They can help students to visit difficult concepts anywhere at any time, for revision purpose and to catch-up with missed classes among others,” said Nyalugwe.

He added: “Utilizing my vast experience in teaching Mathematics and the knowledge I have acquired from my study of ICT, I decided to fathom an innovative way of teaching secondary school Mathematics. The aim was to make the learning of Mathematics more interesting, and easily accessible in other modes other than the traditional chalk and text.

“In the e-modules, I have endeavored to bring out the applied or practical essence of Mathematics, rather than negatively perceived abstract nature of the subject. All this has been done with the aim of attracting the interest of the student by making him or her see Mathematics at work in his or her daily life.”

While Nyalugwe’s innovation is on e-modules, Thondoya has created MILOS, a digital simulation app that is used to create virtual teaching environments.

According to Thondoya, MILOS is currently being expanded to create simulations for laboratories in secondary schools to enable students to conduct virtual chemistry, physics and biology experiments in a lifelike and fun experience

On his part, Mzuni management   staff representative Mr. Moyo expressed his gratitude for the exposure, saying it was a fruitful event.

He said he was happy to see Mzuni students showing the Nation that “we have the best solutions to help the country to circumvent the gaps that the covid-19 pandemic has left our education sector with.”  

Commenting on the electronic modules, Moyo said that if the system demonstrated was explicitly working on complex areas like mathematics, it can easily work for all other subjects.

“The ICT department together with the University management will keep on working with these students to support their efforts and to enhance their initiatives,” he said.

The Mzuni team was also recently engaged by the education ministry to facilitate the ICT and E-Learning Training using the innovation where secondary school teachers drawn from Dedza and Mangochi districts were trained on the use of the e-modules.

Given the bad times that humanity is experiencing at the hands of covid-19 pandemic, Nyalugwe says the e-modules will facilitate the teaching and learning of secondary school mathematics beyond the physical class room, at the students’ own convenience, in a manner that is very psychologically (combining text ,audio and visual) interesting for the students and even where there is no teacher physically present.

The Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Mzuzu University was established in the year 2005 under the Faculty of Information Science and Communication and now belongs to the Faculty of Science, Technology and Innovation since 2018 due to the University restructuring.

Throughout the years, the department has produced graduates whose innovations are helping in enabling the country’s economic growth by broadening the reach of technology in different sectors.

Education, Malawi

Malawi’s road to Silicon Valley looks promising as Mzuni Student Nyalugwe develops Mathematics e-modules

Maneno Chimulala
Leroy Nyalugwe: The man behind Mathematics e-modules

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—As students across the world are still feeling the pinch of Covid-19 pandemic which necessitated closure of schools, Mzuzu University (Mzuni) student, Leroy Nyalugwe, has come to the rescue of secondary school students in Malawi by developing Mathematics electronic modules for the Malawi Secondary School revised curriculum.

In Malawi, many students shun Mathematics saying it is mind-boggling subject and Nyalugwe, a third year student pursuing Bachelor of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at the country’s second public university, started seeing it in 2015 as a crisis which required the speeding up of innovation by repurposing the knowledge, resources, and technology at hand in order to arouse students’ interest in the subject.

“I first conceived theidea of developing e-modules in Mathematics in 2015 to address the problem of Mathematics being generally perceived as a torturous and boring subject by most students. Unfortunately, as a result of their weakness in Mathematics, their performance in other science subjects such as Physics and Chemistry is also negatively affected. Consequently, most of them fail to gain access into university programmes of their dreams because of having weak passes in science subjects.

“Utilizing my vast experience in teachingMathematics and the knowledge I have acquired from my study of ICT, I decided to fathom an innovative way of teaching secondary school Mathematics. The aim was to make the learning of Mathematics more interesting, and easily accessible in other modes other than the traditional chalk and text. In the e-modules, I have endeavored to bring out the applied or practical essence of Mathematics, rather than negatively perceived abstract nature of the subject. All this has been done with the aim of attracting the interest of the student by making him or her see Mathematics at work in his or her daily life,” said Nyalugwe in an interview with the Maravi Post.

Nyalugwe empahsised that the use of videos is an extremely effective tool in helping students both to communicate and visualize concepts.

“The electronic – modules are combining audio and visual to address the special needs students especially the visually impaired and the hearing impaired. This was done by combining ICT and Mathematics in relation to real life situations to help students to understand and appreciate the importance of learning mathematics.

“The modules are made in MP4 format which are more compatible with portable electronic gadgets like tablets,phablets, laptops etc. Since we are living in the world of dynamic technology, ICT have played a greatest part in designing these modules too,” he said.

Responding to a question whether the e-modules are accessible to both urban and rural dwellers, Nyalugwe said there is need for support from well-wishers who can distribute devices that support the technology of playing videos, especially for students living in remote areas of the country where technology is limited.

Nyalugwe also said that there is a lot of benefits in using e-modules.

“Given the bad times that humanity is experiencing at the hands of covid-19 pandemic, the e-modules will facilitate the teaching and learning of secondary school mathematics beyond the physical class room , at the students’ own convenience , in a manner that is very psychologically (combining text ,audio and visual) interesting for the students and even where there is no teacher physically present”, He said. 

According to the upcoming IT wizard, students have already started using the modules and the response is very encouraging.

“Yes students are currently using the electronic modules to cover areas that were left out during the covid-19 break. And as you know that MSCE exams were cancelled and form 4s are not learning, the e-module has come to their rescue as it is helping them to cover those gaps of staying idle,” he said.

About future plans, Nyalugwe had this to say: “l am aiming at reaching out to all students in the country to change their perception towards Mathematics and science subjects . We have a strong team of experienced people and some of them were involved in the development of the revisede curriculum that we are currently using here in Malawi.

“We are ready to use the media like TV stations to provide these lessons and to reach out to students in remote areas of Malawi given financial support.”

Unlike in the past, the current crop of students pursuing ICT and engineering courses has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Malawi can be another Silicon Valley in Africa.

Recently, Mzuzu Univeristy graduate Kondwani Chimatiro unveiled a software branded ‘Giant x’ which helps education institutions in the smooth management of such aspects as accounting, fees and production of receipts.

Another IT expert in Malawi Mayamiko Nkoloma, a Master of Science (MSc) focused in Wireless communication systems from The University of Sheffield, also responded to the skyrocketing of COVID-19 cases in the country by  coming up with a software to reduce contact in work places like banks, shops by making shoes smarter.

Having realized that no company wanted its operational processes to play a role in transmission of the virus, Nkoloma said a very cheap sensor would be embedded in the shoe and the sensor would allow people to make transactions by just stepping on the mat.